Page 50 - ENGLISH SPEAKING E-MODULE

The walking dead:

Pervasive hopelessness is one of the stories that the community seems

only too willing to accept and expect. However, this can be turned on its head by a
skillful

storyteller. For example, Patricia Deegan (who has lived experience of being

psychiatrically labelled and is also a practicing clinical psychologist) often writes about

people whose lives have been reduced to absolute hopelessness by mental health systems

and services that spread hopelessness and helplessness. However, Deegan tells these

stories

in ways that politically challenge community acceptance of this hopelessness.

Re-awakening:

Finding hope and a capacity for joy in small things and small changes we ourselves make

is another common story – one that certain people with power over us both

want to ‘hear’ and also not ‘hear’ because they are afraid. Often, they are more
comfortable

hearing how our lives have been improved by how they helped us.

Canaries in the mine:

This is a story which tells the community of our unique capacity to interpret early
warning

signs of a society that is deeply distressed. It suggests that we have sensitivities that we
can

start interpreting as important gifts we can give our communities, reading warning signs,

a skill that is respected in many smaller-scale societies.

Creativity: There are many clichés about people with ‘mental illness’ and creativity.
There

is also truth in many of them. As we offer creative solutions to illness talk and find life
and

stature from creating we weave another new chapter to the community story about

‘mental

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